Review of Pacific Rim (2013) by Zachary S — 20 Aug 2017

The movie "Pacific Rim" was by most the movie the revived the Kaiju movie genre, right after cloverfield. Though the movie came out before Kong and Godzilla did in their respected movie verses. They both hold major differences while being inspired by the other. But lets delay get right into Pacific rim.

The best way to describe Pacific rim is not through its story, characters and dialogue but through its concept, style, and visual format storytelling. Pacific rim is practically a combined inspiration of everything giant monster based from Transformers, digimon, pokemon, voltron, ultraman, Power rangers, Gundam, Gamera and The king himself Godzilla. The movie feel like an old nostalgia trip back to childhood action shows with giant monsters or anime based feel and that's what movie feels like and why I really like it. The director Guillermo Del Toro is a big kaiju fa, and took inspiration from godzilla himself.

What holds the movie together is its cinematography and visual special effects. This is especially shown in the monster fight scenes, the fights are quick and over the top creative and fun such as scenes like the boat sword and elbow rocket along so much more. What makes it all work, is that it's paced and slow never too fast or throwing too much at you it's like if Michael Bay calmed down with the explosives to show a better story. Thus also contributes to the story like the fights they to are slow visually shown its like an good example of what an visual story is done, the format is clear and never to blurred or feels distracted it allows you to submerse yourself into that world.

What the Movie doesn't due to well however is its Character story writing and dialogue. Though the characters are fun, decent and have great moments like Pentecost and Mako, as well as Hannibal cho and Dr. newton. But other characters like Raleigh and Hansen are okay to like cliched action roles like Hansen is the bully and arrogant jerk, with lines that feel like they came from independence day or something. But then again it's still decent and better than Independence Day because it has a Narrative Story. just more visual than writing format. But that's what Pacific Rim is.

Though the movie took inspiration from Japanese Godzilla and some what of Kong's films, but there are some major difference by terms of concept. Godzilla is a natural disaster/tragedy based film with a monster in it, while kong is a pure monster movie has a sense of mystery and dread, mixed with great spielbergian characters and storytelling/writing that mix up the thought driven message that ends with tragedy. Pacific rim is an anime action based film like Transformers, Ultraman, Voltron, and with more visual based storytelling, than story writing/dialogue. But that makes it good because of charm and nostalgia, mainly due it being reminiscent of old childhood shows whether anime or western action based. While mixed with an clear, slow and well paced visual story format makes the world not only a realistic look and feel but also an identity that can easily be understood through the story better than Independence day itself.

So yeah I'd like pacific rim alot, is better than Kong or Godzilla, No! While both movies are different in concept nd Kong and Godzilla did their storyline and writing better, including Character. Pacific Rim is about one one thing. Childhood Nostalgia and formating to more an adult stage of modern age to bring back a fan loved series and concept that is extremely creative and fun. It was Inspired by Godzilla but yet it isn't its own thing but charming and nostalgic at the same time. Thanks to the visuals, cinematography, special effects and Format makes the world all the more reason to make it interesting. so Pacific rim in the end is a fun childhood nostalgia based film with good action, good example of visual storytelling and fun decent characters that balance out the movie just enough to make the Kaiju genre alive again.